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Very nice blog...

Liberals Against Terrorism (COIN Page)

Liberals Against Terrorism - Counterinsurgency. Stumbled on this while researchng another issue.... Some interesting discussions here at first glance - have not conducted any background research on the site - just throwing it out for our forum members' info.

Lat

I can't speak about all of the posters on LAT but regarding two of the psuedoanonnymous ones who occasionally visit Zenpundit:

Nadezhda: A very bright, well educated lady. Would seem to have some real background on policy issues. Has another blog Chez Nadezhda

praktike: currently studying Arabic in Cairo and is less active now than formerly. Smart and an effective debater who does not lose his cool. Surfs the net daily with a professional discipline and thoroughness that I find very impressive. Appears connected to liberal organizations in the real world. Guest blogged on high profile sites. Positions on issues are usually "liberal hawk" variety. Going out on a limb, I'd say he is foreign born or son of immigrants to U.S. or Britain.

The View From On The Ground

Think about everything youíve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war.

Then think again.

Iím a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers donít always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming.

Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Maybe not wrong, but certainly different than the picture in my head....

More than anything in the last few days Iíve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home donít quite get it. They donít see the real picture. They donít get the real story. Some of them, like Lt. Col. Gregg Parrish, look seriously pained in the face when he says only a part of the picture is being told; the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. Itís a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.

Iíve listened to the soldiers and Parrish about the missing pieces of the puzzles that donít reach home. My selfish, journalistic drive immediately thinks ďPerfect. A story that hasnít been told. Let me at it.Ē...

Battlefield Blogs Take Iraq War Into Homes of America

... In a development that is increasingly worrying US military commanders in Iraq, a growing number of American soldiers - 200 at the last count - have set up their own blogs, or internet diaries, and are updating them from the battlefield.

The phenomenon, facilitated by the provision of internet cafes at almost all US camps to permit soldiers regular contact with home, has for the first time allowed personal reports of the reality of combat to be read as they happen...

A US military spokesman said that failing to maintain some form of control of what soldiers were writing would be tactically naive as it could provide information that could aid the enemy.

"We don't have a problem with most of what they write," he said. "But we don't want them to give away the farm."

AEI Interview with Robert Kaplan at Regions of Mind

"TAE: Why do so many reporters, academics, and some everyday Americans think that people who go into the Army or Marines must be folks who didn't have bright prospects in college or the civilian work force?

Kaplan: To be diplomatic, I think it's class prejudice and snobbery. Because most of the people I meet in the lower ranks aren't poor or from the ghetto ó they're the solid working class, which does still exist. They're from non-trendy places in between the two coasts, or from working-class urban neighborhoods.

Look, for example, at one of the Special Forces teams I was with in Algeria. The executive officer, a graduate of The Citadel, was from a farming family in Indiana. The master sergeant was from a farming family in New Hampshire. The warrant officer grew up in an Italian section of Queens, New York. That's America. Whites in the barracks get very insulted if you confuse them with so-called white trash, and African Americans in the barracks get tremendously insulted if you confuse them with people in the inner city. With both groups, some of them may have come from the underclass, but they've long since separated themselves from it. They have no class envy."

Quality of the troops

One of my enduring memories of my time in the Marine Corps is the high quality of the people I encountered. When I went to OCS I was impressed with the intelligence and quality of the other candidates. I had similar experience when I worked with the troops in Vietnam. My observation of our current forces suggest if anything the quality has improved.

SWC Member & Blogger Merv Benson...

The al Qaeda document you reported on described the media strategy as one in which al Qaeda bombs and the media blames the U.S. and Iraqi forces for not stopping it. Sure enough, that is exactly the spin that the Washington Post puts on the Tal Afar story. Shouldn't they at least acknowledge that they are following the enemy's script?

Just to be different, how about discussing the wickedness of fooling noncombatants into thinking they are getting bargain flour so that they can be murdered and be part of a story attacking people not responsible for their murder?...